Editorial views from across the state

Spotted-owl count down despite huge cost to communities

The dirty little secret about spotted owls in Northwest forests is that their numbers have declined in spite of the fact their old-growth forest habitat has increased because many thousands of acres of federal, state and private lands have been put off limits to logging.

This isn't a claim by the forest-products industry. It's what recent scientific research indicates.

The implication of this is there must be other factors, other than the loss of habitat, accounting for the owls' decline. One factor apparently is that their cousin, the barred owl, is increasingly invading spotted-owl territory, pushing them out.

The implication of these developments is quite stark in terms of a reasonable balance between protection of the environment, such as spotted-owl habitat, and providing for human needs.

What has happened is that timber harvest in the Northwest's federally owned forests during and since the 1990s has been drastically reduced compared with earlier levels in the name of protecting old-growth trees for spotted-owl habitat to help recover this endangered species.

Yet the result has been fewer owls. Go figure.

This has occurred at the expense of devastating blows to the economies of rural communities, such as Packwood, Randle, Glenoma and Morton in East Lewis County. Many good-paying jobs were lost because the harvest bans in federal forests were a major factor in the closure of mills and loss of logging work in timber-dependent communities.

Was the huge price paid for this in human terms worth it in terms of environmental protection? The spotted-owl trends indicate it was not.

Yet we still have the environmental groups going to court in an effort to put even more land off limits to harvest. This is occurring at a time when even the allowable harvest levels — still far below earlier volume — in the Clinton administration's Northwest Forest Plan of the late 1990s haven't come close to being met. Reasons for this include built-in failure in the plan because of the elaborate long-term environmental studies required before a timber sale can be approved and take place, and legal challenges by environmental groups even to the sales that are approved.

Out of Balance

Even with all of the evidence owl numbers are declining despite more habitat, the environmental groups seek to keep or put more timberland into spotted-owl protection and federal judges are often siding with them, fully or at least in part.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman issued a preliminary injunction to stop Weyerhaeuser Co. from harvesting in spotted-owl habitat in four parcels here in Southwest Washington, putting 50,000 acres off limits to the company.

One wonders if timber harvest would be allowed in the designated owl-protection areas even if the owls fully recover or vanish because of natural factors, as have many other species over the eons. It won't if the environmental groups who have used the owl as a surrogate to protect still more old-growth trees have their way.

Credit Judge Pechman for at least not siding with the Seattle-based Audubon Society in seeking also, in its suit against Weyerhaeuser, an injunction against the state. The Audubon Society contended the state's timber-harvest regulations on state and private land are not adequate to protect the owls outside of 13 "special emphasis" protection areas.

The judge said scientific data on whether the owls actually inhabit these areas is not current.

Shawn Cantrell, executive director of Seattle Audubon, said of the judge's ruling against Weyerhaeuser, "We see this as a real victory for the environment and the people of Washington."

Meanwhile, rural communities in forested areas continue to suffer economically and with related social ills because of such victories by environmental groups in Congress and the courts in the past and now.

What's needed on such issues is reasonable balance between protecting our environment and the needs of people. That balance remains to be achieved.

— The Chronicle, Centralia, Aug. 6